Health Rookie

For my given age and weight, I burn approximately 400 calories for one hour on the ellipitical trainer. Though this is a big effort on my part, the extra calories burned are easily negated by a few cookies (which aren’t all that great anyway) or other mindless eating. It’s easy to fall into the mindset that since you worked out you should be able to have a few treats. To reverse your outlook when you’re tempted by some junk food, think before you eat. Is the amount of exercise needed to burn off these extra calories really worth it? I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes the answer is yes, but most of the time it isn’t. This restaurant calorie counter from athleteinme.com has you enter your weight and select from a variety of fast food options. It then calculates how long you would have to jog,walk, swim, or bike to burn off the calories. How long would I have to walk for a Big Mac? Over two hours.

The idea here is to have a lot more vegetables than pasta. The more the better. This recipe is flexible. Use whatever vegetables you want. Soft vegetables are those that are typically sauteed and the hard vegetables that take longer to cook will be tossed in with the pasta.

In a large fry pan, saute a lot of chopped garlic (at least 4 or 5 cloves) in 1 Tablespoon of olive oil until fragrant. One at a time, add all the soft vegetables such as sliced mushrooms, rinsed spinach leaves, and thin strips of red pepper. Stir between each addition and cover pan to help the vegetables cook down. Add a little chicken broth instead of oil if needed. Add the MorningStar Sausage Crumbles and a can of canenelli beans and heat through. Once this mixture is done, season with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper.

Five minutes before the pasta is done, add the hard vegetables such as small pieces of asparagus, brocolli, or carrots.

Drain the pasta and toss with sauteed mixture along with more broth if needed. Serve with grated parmesan cheese.

This Television Watching Calculator comes to us from Peter Walsh and the Oprah show. You enter the number of hours of TV watched on weekdays and weekends and it tells you how many months you spend in front of the television each year that could be better spent doing something else. Finding out my total (almost 2 months a year) was more shocking than finding out how many calories are in your favorite dessert or appetizer when you go out to eat. I try to exercise for 4 or 5 hours a week which is only turns out to be less than 2 weeks.  Two weeks.  Two months.  Turn off the tube and get moving!

Tried the MorningStar Farms Meal Starters Sausage Crumbles in a favorite pasta recipe (click here for the recipe) and they were great! I never thought I would eat those meatless products but they’re worth a try. You know the old saying that all those weird things like rattlesnake or frog’s legs taste like chicken? Well some of these commercial meatless products really do taste like the real thing and the difference in the nutrition facts are outstanding. For example, the MorningStar Italian sausage crumbles have 90 calories and 2.5 grams of fat (.5 saturated). The ground sausage that comes in a tube like Jimmy Dean has 17 grams of fat (6 grams saturated) for the same size serving. That’s almost seven times more fat. Even the light version has 11 grams of fat and it does not have the Italian flavor I was looking for. I’m sure some purists and more experienced vegetarian cooks have other meat substitutes without the additives you’ll find in some of these commercial products but they are convenient and a great introduction to going vegetarian for some of your meals.

Winter and weight loss just don’t go well together. You get through the holidays making the best food choices you can and you try to stay active. Your healthy efforts are going pretty well and then the mid-winter blues hit. I’ve always found it funny that New Year’s resolutions to lose weight come at the most difficult season to be successful. Even though the magazines and stores are shouting Spring, where I live in New England it will probably be a good 6 week wait or more. After being sidelined for a few weeks, it’s time to get started again. Some things to keep you going -

• Get a calendar. Use it to count down the days to that beach vacation or give yourself a star when you have a good day with your exercise and food plan.
• Buy a new cookbook or take a cooking class to learn more about healthy cooking and get some new ideas.
• Soak up some sun (even if you’re indoors). It may be cold out but the sun is getting warmer and the days are getting longer.
• The cold makes outdoor exercise more difficult. I’d bundle up and go for a long hike in November but the same temperatures in February seem colder. Think of some indoor fitness goals like flexibility or some simple strength training.
• Get started today. You’ll be glad you did.

The National Institutes of Health has created two quizzes with pictures that demonstrate how much larger portion sizes are today compared to 20 years ago. The quizzes also ask you how much exercise it would take to burn off those extra calories. Basically, serving sizes and calories have doubled over the past twenty years and no amount of extra physical activity can compensate for that. Granted the examples given were fast food and restaurant fare which you probably want to avoid anyway, but the quizzes demonstrate how much our food environment has changed over the years. The more you know about the pitfalls you encounter everyday while trying to eat right, the better you’ll be able to avoid them.

This link at Men’s Health Magazine has pictures of choices of fast food and chain restaurants which show healthier choices and diet disasters to avoid. The fact that some chicken or fish sandwiches have more calories and fat than their beef counterparts has been publicized before, but to see some of these calorie counts in print is still shocking. Check out the tab  “Best and Worst”. If restaurants ever had to print calories or fat grams on their menus, they would never sell some of these items ever again. Not once in awhile, not on vacation or your birthday. Never! As shown on the website, the grandaddy of restaurant nightmares is the Aussie Fries at Outback Steakhouse. They clock in at 2900 calories and 182 grams of fat. Even if you share them with a friend (or 4 or 5), you’ve eaten a meal before you order the entree. Take a look at some of the other examples. It will help keep you honest next time you’re out that’s if you want to go out and eat at all.

We all tend to underestimate the amount of food (and calories) on our plates.  It helps to have a scale and measuring cups/spoons at home so you can re-learn what a serving looks like.  Without using a scale or measuring cups, the following guidelines may help.

Tennis Ball  - 1 cup

Golf Ball - 1/4 cup

Deck of Cards - 3 ounce portion of meat

One Dice - 1 teaspoon

Ping Pong Ball - 2 Tablespoons

Checkbook - a serving of fish

I happened to pick up a snack size bag of Crispy Delite Red Onion Chips at a health food store. The chips are made by a company called Healthy Delites
and the list of ingredients is healthy (red onion, canola oil, sea salt). If you like those crispy onions that go on casseroles, you’ll love these but are they really that healthy? A 1 ounce portion has 110 calories and 2.5 grams of fat (.5 grams saturated). The chips have less fat and calories than regular chips but how do they compare to some of the Baked Chips out there? The nutritionals are about the same. A 1 ounce portion of Baked Lays has 120 calories and 3 grams of fat. I suppose the Baked Lays have a weird list of ingredients and if I compare them to the fried onion crunchy things, they are a healthier choice but since neither of these snacks is a good source of protein,fiber, or anything else and as much as I really liked them, they have to go in the junk category. They’re a treat for once in awhile but not anything I would want in the house.

Update on 2/26/08  Tried the Crispy Delite Carrot Flavor and didn’t like them at all.  Carrots have a much milder taste than onions so all I tasted was the oil.

Fish with Tomatoes and Capers: I like fish but sometimes it’s just too much like diet food. Here’s a way to liven it up. Tilapia or Catfish are good choices for this recipe because they’re relatively affordable, mild tasting, and stand up well to the saute method without falling apart. Dredge 4 or 5 fish filets in flour (with a little salt and pepper if you want). To a non-stick skillet, add 1 Tablespoon oil and heat to medium/medium high. It’s good if you have a large enough pan to hold all the fish at once so you don’t have to add any more oil. Cook the filets about 3 or 4 minutes per side and use a spatula to turn themover so they don’t break apart. Since I have always baked fish and checked for doneness with a fork, this was a new technique for me. Look at the edges of the fish and you’ll notice it turning white. Set cooked filets aside. Wipe out the pan and add 1 more Tablespoon oil. Over medium heat, saute a few minced garlic cloves until fragrant. Add a container of grape tomatoes, handful of chopped kalamata olives and 1 Tablespoon of capers. After a few minutes, the tomatoes will start to sweat and break down. Add 1/2 bottle of clam juice and simmer for a few more minutes. You could also add a little white wine with the clam juice if you have it. Nestle the fish filets back into the tomato mixture to heat them back up again. Serve with pasta.